Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation Therapy (“UVBI”)

The following text is an excerpt from the excellent book “Cancer Step Out of the Box” by Ty Bollinger. Reproduced here, with his kind permission.

Considerable research into the use of ultraviolet (UV) light for treatment of disease was initiated in the 1870s. One of the first researchers to experiment with UV light was Niels Ryberg Finsen, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1903 for his UV treatments of 300 people suffering from Lupus in Denmark.

Another maverick to experiment with light therapy was Kurt Naswitis, who directly irradiated the blood with UV light through a shunt in 1922. Then beginning in the 1920s and continuing through the 1930s, Seattle scientist Dr. Emmett Knott sought to harness the known bacteriacidal properties of UV rays in order to treat infectious blood diseases. Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation Therapy (“UVBI”) is a scientifically accurate name given to what has previously been called PhotoBiologic therapy, Photophoresis, and Photoluminescence (among other names).

UVBI has been used for many years to deactivate bacteria, viruses, fungi, toxins, and other invading organisms. This therapy is performed by irradiating (with UV light) a calculated portion (100-125 mL) of the patient’s blood for between 10 and 30 minutes, then reintroducing the blood back into the body. This irradiated blood then emits photonic energy to the rest of the blood, which stimulates a series of favorable reactions and generates an oxidative rich environment. This in turn deactivates toxins, increases oxygen availability, stimulates the immune system, decreases blood viscosity, inhibits clot formation in the main circulation, and improves blood circulation by way of vasodilatation ( i.e., the widening of blood vessels). UVBI also decreases platelet aggregation and stimulates singlet oxygen, which creates an oxidative environment promoting self-destruction of abnormal cells (cancer) via apoptosis.

Central to understanding the action of UVBI was the 1922 discovery by Alexander Gurvich that all living cells regularly emit biophotons. A photon is a single particle of light. Biophotons are the smallest physical units of light that are stored in and used by all biological organisms (including you). Vital sun energy finds its way into your cells via the food you eat, in the form of these biophotons. For reasons discussed below, red blood cells (erythrocytes) are peculiarly sensitive to light and will respond to it by emitting biophotons that in turn stimulate other red cells to do likewise. Bacteria and viruses are more vulnerable to biophotonic emissions than are normal cells.

Early researchers noted that UVBI has a “dual effect” on the immune system: normal doses stimulate leukocytes while excess doses destroy various leukocytes. The first effect is the basis of the immune response explanation of the beneficial effects of UVBI. The second suggests a reason why UVBI seems so effective against autoimmune diseases. In autoimmune disorders, it appears that the metabolically active T-cells and other immune cells absorb much greater numbers of biophotons than ordinary body cells, and this destroys them, slowing down or stopping the disease. Thus, UVBI can therefore be both “immuno- stiumulatory” and “immuno-suppressive” depending on which sets of cells are under discussion. Likewise, an initial dose of UVBI can stimulate a cell but repeated doses can eventually inhibit it or destroy it. UVBI also oxygenates and improves the characteristics of the blood. This happens quickly following transfusion of treated blood and can transform clumps of red blood cells into free-flowing blood within minutes. Blood oxygenation might be connected with the fact that UVBI creates a small amount of ozone in the blood. Certain special characteristics of the red blood cells as well as their sheer numbers (25 trillion in adults) make them especially effective as agents of UVBI, which is considered primarily a red blood cell immunotherapy. The stimulation of red blood cells turns them into a “third arm” of the immune system. It is also possible that the fragments of bacteria, virus, and cells that are destroyed by UVBI act as a kind of “vaccine” in the plasma, enhancing the immune response. UVBI also reverses the suppression of the detoxifying function of the liver.

Dr. Emmett Knott, a pioneer in this therapy, together with his associates, sought to explain exactly how UVBI treatment obtains its therapeutic effect. They and subsequent researchers have identified two possible modes:

1. the ultraviolet treatment of the blood destroys or alters viruses and bacteria in the extracted blood in such a way as to provoke a reaction by the immune system upon its return to the body which, in turn, destroys most or all of the other bacteria or virus in the body; and

2. the treatment of a small fraction (5%) of the blood then spreads throughout the entire volume of the blood upon returning to the body, and the induced secondary emissions destroy viruses, bacteria, and activated white blood cells (leukocytes).

In the November 2, 2007, issue of Science Daily , there was an interesting article which spotlighted scientists at Newcastle University (Colin Self and Stephen Thompson) who have developed a cancer fighting technology utilizing UV light to activate antibodies which specifically attack tumors. According to Professor Colin Self, “ We have a means of being able to illuminate an area to turn on the immune system to kill cancer in that area. I would describe this development as the equivalent of ultra-specific ‘magic bullets.’ This could mean that a patient coming in for treatment of bladder cancer would receive an injection of the cloaked antibodies. She would sit in the waiting room for an hour and then come back in for treatment by light. Just a few minutes of the light therapy directed at the region of the tumour would activate the T-cells causing her body’s own immune system to attack the tumour .”

According to Dr. William Campbell Douglass, author of a book about light therapy called Into the Light , UVBI has brought about remarkable results in both prompting cancer remission and extending the lives of patients who have been diagnosed with cancer. At the Yale Cancer Center, Dr. Richard L. Edelson has developed a highly successful method of fighting Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma (CTCL) using a variation on UVBI. He calls his version “trans-immunization therapy.” In his variation, the entire blood supply is treated, rather than just a small sample of the blood. Dr. Edelson’s treatment (while highly successful) is also very expensive, and he only treats CTCL with it. The good news, though, is that there is every reason to believe that small samples of blood treated by UV light can be just as effective as treating the entire blood supply.

In the words of Dr. Robert Rowen, MD, “ If you give that blood a clean slate, you inactivate the organisms with the ultraviolet, and give it back to the body, the body can now see the antigen structure of those organisms, or in other words, the three dimensional structure. It knows that those organisms are there, but the organisms happen to be dead, so they’re not going to hurt you. Your body can then see those organisms and mount a much more efficient immune response.”

UVBI should be a part of a multi-pronged approach to treatment. It’s an ideal adjunctive therapy for cancer in that it adds oxygen to the body, cuts pain, reduces inflammation, and decreases infections. Lifestyle, immune system, nutrition, and detoxification all go hand-in- hand with UVBI. And don’t forget, UVBI is much safer than the “Big 3.”